Smaller cities needed

Our capitals have become unpleasant for living with particulate pollution from vehicle exhausts killing more of their people than road accidents; according to overseas research.

Canadian town-planner Lewis Mumford many years ago pointed out a city of up to a million offers everything a reasonable person could ask.

Over a million, the quality of life drops.

For my first 45 years, I lived in Perth, a city of about half a million.

I loved every minute, was able to take on leadership of all the groups in which I was interested, reared a happy family, met all the overseas folk I wished to meet, including Paul Robeson and Katy Hepburn, artists whom we admired.

Big cities do not produce big brains.

The ancient Greek city states produced standards of thought we still admire.

Plato Aristotle, Diogenes, ideas of democracy.

How to keep Australia safe.

A national government with the courage to decentralise our capitals.

It must get the States' agreement they will not try to poach big business by offering incentives.

Encourage all government departments to find smaller cities where they can work better or equally well.

It is no use asking the heads of departments.

I remember when my brother was deputy-head of Posts and Telegraphs.

He and his director both lived in a Perth suburb.

They told the State government the ideal home for new letter boxes, telephone boxes, cables, was in the heart of Perth.

Once Anare was in Melbourne, a courageous Federal Minister told the department they had to shift to Tasmania.

Screams of disaster were ignored so today they live very happily, some short distance from Hobart.

Dr Vincent Serventy, Pearl Beach